Spoilers for “The Robotic Revolution.”
The beginning of any season of Physician Who is vital, doubly so when there’s a brand new co-star to introduce. “The Robotic Revolution” has to get us to fall in love with Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), ensnare new followers and hold current ones hooked. Particularly because it’s the second of two sequence that Disney paid for, which means it’s received to do nicely sufficient to maintain the cash flowing.
We open “17 years in the past” with Belinda Chandra staring on the stars subsequent to her boyfriend, Alan Budd (Jonny Inexperienced). It’s an ungainly teenage date, with Alan clearly attempting to win the center of his beau by shopping for her a kind of star adoption certificates. In 2025, Belinda is now a nurse at a busy London hospital the place, within the background, the Physician is trying to find her.
Belinda goes residence to mattress, and we see that she’s received the star possession certificates framed on her wall. However she’s rudely awoken by a squad of retro-futuristic ‘50s robots in a Tintin rocket who’ve come to abduct each her and the certificates. The Physician reaches her residence simply in time to see the rocket take off, and cue the opening credit.
The certificates wasn’t a gag current, and he or she is definitely queen of the planet BelindaChandra, populated by BelindaChandrians (I’m calling them people any further). The Physician offers chase within the TARDIS however each the rocket and TARDIS get caught in a vaguely-defined time fissure. When Belinda arrives, she’s greeted by the human Sasha55, who tells her the robots are in cost, having overthrown and subjugated the folks in a bloody rebellion a decade prior.
“Oh, this can be a bit like Jupiter Ascending,” I wrote in my notes.
Belinda is taken to a throne room the place she’s informed that she should merge with the planet’s evil ruling supercomputer, the AI Generator. AI Generator, all cranium shapes and Tesla coils, intends to bond with Belinda. She is proven an animated demonstration of her destiny, as she is wrapped in machine components and made into an unthinking cyborg.
“Oh, that's just like the scary bit from Superman III,” I wrote in my notes.
Who’s been lurking within the background of the scene all alongside? The Physician, who has adopted the title of Planetary Historian. (Due to the time fissure, he arrived right here six months forward of the rocket, the Robots seized the TARDIS and he’s been working with the insurrection. He’s even received a brand new companion, Sasha55, who he’s promised to take to the celebs when that is throughout.) He tells Belinda the robots can’t, for some cause, hear each ninth phrase spoken, and offers her a coded message telling her he, and the insurrection, are right here to rescue her. Within the ensuing combat, Sasha55 is vaporized, a lot to the Physician’s admittedly transient horror and grief.
The surviving rebels, together with just a little Roomba bot assigned to wash Queen Belinda’s pathway…
“Oh, just like the floor-cleaning robotic M-O from Wall-E,” I wrote in my notes.
… escape to a teleporter, after which the Physician disables the Roomba to make sure the robots can’t monitor them down, then kisses the ‘bot by means of apology. Then comes time for the episode to cease whereas we see the Physician and Belinda work together correctly for the primary time. The Physician was informed about Belinda’s plight by somebody from their future, and he can’t say extra lest he muddle the timelines.
The time fracture each vessels handed by has induced loads of time-bending points, like the very fact the robots have their very own copy of Belinda’s star certificates. However it’s not a duplicate, it’s the identical object from one other cut-off date, and no person is aware of how or why they’ve it. Belinda, like Ruby Sunday earlier than her, is trope-aware sufficient to know that two of the identical object from completely different cut-off dates can not occupy the identical house, lest it trigger an explosion.
“Oh, like in Timecop!,” I wrote in my notes.
There are wounded on the base, and Belinda immediately kicks into nurse mode, grabbing IVs and treating sufferers. She’s fast to take cost and has no endurance for nonsense, fast to defend herself from any trace of condescension when the Physician suggests one thing “timey-wimey” is occurring. She refuses to permit anybody to combat her battles for her and is decided to seize the narrative and form it her approach, regardless of the price. So, she sneaks off, reactivates the Roomba and gives herself to the robots in alternate for them sparing the lives of the rebels.
Belinda and the Physician are taken to satisfy the AI Generator which seems to be… the AL Generator. When Belinda was kidnapped by the robots, she talked about her ex Alan had purchased the certificates, and they also went to kidnap him as nicely. However the time fracture meant Alan arrived a decade earlier, fused with the machine (turning into a creepy cyborg) and began the robotic rebellion.
Even so, Belinda’s joyful to sacrifice herself to him till she spots Alan holding his copy of the star certificates. She opts to Timecop the 2 items of paper collectively, inflicting a giant timey-wimey explosion that solely the Physician can pull her out of. Belinda is protected, however the Physician mentions that he’s now intertwined with Belinda’s timestream. Alan, in the meantime, has been regressed to a sperm on the ground that the Roomba bot shortly mops away.
Reunited with the TARDIS, the Physician scans Belinda and divulges he’s already met her descendant — Mundy Flynn (additionally Varada Sethu) from final season’s “Increase.” Belinda could also be curious as to how somebody that far faraway from her could also be an identical, however she’s not embracing the thriller. She’s indignant with the Physician for scanning her with out consent and that he’s treating her like a puzzle to be solved.
Having seen Sasha55 die, she is aware of trekking round with the Physician is harmful, and needs to get again to Might 24, 2025. However the TARDIS received’t land on present-day Earth, and even the Cloister Bell begins ringing a warning. They open the TARDIS doorways to see empty house earlier than the Physician decides to take her again residence “the great distance spherical.”
As soon as the ship disappears, a sequence of objects begin to float in entrance of the digital camera: A smashed up black cab, the twisted wreckage of the Eiffel Tower, Belinda’s star adoption certificates and a calendar with all the times in Might however the twenty fifth ticked off. Uh-oh.
It's lots to get by in such a brief episode
Like plenty of Disney-era Who, “The Robotic Revolution” feels overstuffed to the purpose of bursting. On one hand, nothing overstays its welcome. On the opposite, it feels just like the present is burning by a film’s value of plot on fast-forward. It’s laborious to get a tangible sense of the stakes given how rushed all the pieces is, and there’s plenty of telling, reasonably than displaying. We’re informed the planet is beneath the brutal thumb of an evil overlord nevertheless it performs out as little purple ships firing at buildings within the digital matte work. We’re informed Alan is a creep however we by no means actually get any sense of that till after he’s revealed because the villain. We’re informed the Physician is working on directions from a determine from his personal future, nevertheless it’d be good if a few of this was depicted.
Davies was pivotal in reviving Physician Who and constructing the cultural juggernaut it turned beneath his management. His position within the present’s historical past is safe however, even so, his Disney-era sequence appear to be in thrall to the work of his personal successor, Steven Moffat. “The Robotic Revolution” includes a macguffin discovered inside a secular trinket, a break up narrative and time-bending shenanigans. It’s not that Moffat owns these concepts however you may virtually really feel Davies attempting to bend his much less formal, extra character-driven model into one thing else. A cynic may recommend Davies is reacting to the slight of not having a single credited episode in Doctor Who Magazine’s most up-to-date ballot of the sequence’ biggest, whereas Moffat has 5.
In reality, I wouldn’t be shocked if the marginally frantic, gappy nature of this script is a deliberate ploy to put the framework for the remainder of the season. However, even so, you may really feel a level of straining for a storytelling mannequin that doesn’t fairly work.
If the script is the weakest a part of the episode, then the manufacturing design has to take the crown for strongest. The retro-futuristic robots bring to mind a shiny purple Ford Thunderbird or Chevy Bel Air whereas the cleansing robotic is clearly styled on a VW Beetle. It’s a reasonably humanistic design I want the robovac makers of right now would emulate.
Behind the scenes
Physician Who is a daily supply of gossip, particularly given the completely tenuous nature of the star position. It’s straightforward to say the lead is about to give up and for that to sound true, given they depart after three or 4 years within the position anyway. There are a selection of current reviews suggesting Ncuti Gatwa has already give up the present, or is about to. A lot of them additionally recommend the BBC and Disney are refusing to greenlight new episodes till they see how profitable this season is. As well as, the BBC says funding cuts and inflation has seen its price range fall by £1 billion (round $1.3 billion) in actual phrases since 2010. It doesn't assist that, when requested instantly about the way forward for the sequence in an interview with (the BBC's youth-orientated information present) Newsround, Russell T. Davies opted to equivocate in a approach that means the present is about to again on ice.
I point out this due to the sequence the place Belinda defeats Alan with the certificates, and the Physician pulls her out. He says she wanted a Time Lord to soak up the large quantity of power kicked out when she touched the paper collectively. The Physician then clutched at his again as if he was in plenty of ache, however shrugged it off and was fantastic for the remainder of the episode. Followers with lengthy recollections, nevertheless, know that absorbing plenty of power from the time vortex is what killed Christopher Eccleston’s Physician again in 2005. Properly, that and Eccleston’s determination to go away.
Mrs. Flood Nook
It appears Mrs. Flood enjoys transferring in subsequent door to whoever is winding up as this yr’s companion. Whereas being kidnapped, she calls to her neighbor to name the police and inform her dad and mom she loves them. Because the rocket lifts off, she tells the viewers that we haven’t seen her, and goes again indoors to keep away from encountering the Physician, who sprints out in pursuit.
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